How has Mubi’s SVOD platform developed in recent years, and how do they differentiate themselves from Netflix, Amazon Prime, and locally-oriented specialist platforms? Roderik Smits discusses Mubi’s business model and explains why they are now trying to break in to the distribution business.
Promoting film culture
Mubi started in 2007 as an information-sharing platform which introduced quality auteur films to an online audience of cinephiles.

Following on from the European Screens Conference, MeCETES has invited speakers to write a blog about their conference paper. Here, Holly Aylett examines how the arrival of US on-demand services like Netflix poses challenges for European cultural diversity.
Business models are evolving fast for the audio visual industry. Opportunities are opening up at a speed, which makes it hard to imagine the future.

MeCETES and Creative Europe Desk UK present:
UK Film Distribution: What’s Changing?
A one-day event on the changing nature of UK film distribution
12-5pm, Monday 13 June 2016
Regent Street Cinema, London W1B 2UW
Film distribution is changing. The traditional windowing model, whereby films open exclusively in cinemas before they are introduced to the home video market, and thereafter on television, is being undermined by new release strategies.

While cinema admissions data is publicly available, viewing figures for European films on TV, DVD and VOD is harder to come by. Huw D Jones examines how to overcome this problem.
One of the main challenges researching the market for European film is determining what Europeans actually watch. While the European Audiovisual Observatory’s LUMIERE database provides pretty accurate data on cinema admissions across Europe, viewing figures for TV, DVD ...

At its meeting in Brussels on 25 November, the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council adopted conclusions on European audiovisual policy in the digital era. Huw Jones reports.
Creating a ‘digital single market’ should be among the top priorities of the new European Commission, a meeting of EU Culture Ministers in Brussels concluded yesterday (Nov 25, 2014).
The Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council, chaired by Italy’s Dario Franceschini, identified the ...

European cinema-owners are resistant to day-and-date releasing. Yet a new report suggests simultaneous VOD distribution may make certain films more accessible to the public. Huw Jones reports.
Ken Loach films are often a big draw for European cinemagoers. But when the veteran British director released his latest documentary, The Spirit of ’45, in September 2013, audiences in Italy and Spain didn’t even have to leave their sofas to catch ...

With the advance of Video-on-Demand (VoD) platforms like Netflix transforming the way media content is distributed and consumed, film business consultant Michael Franklin considers the implications for film financing.
Independent film financing relies upon the evaluation of future revenues in order to guide investment and pre-sales. Yet the revenue streams upon which such calculations are made are in a state of flux as traditional release windows (e.g.

Almost 1 billion cinema tickets are sold in the EU each year. Yet only 10% of these are for films from other European countries, reports Huw D Jones.
Each year, Britain exports about €164 billion worth of goods and services to the rest of the European Union, including €57 billion in machinery and transport equipment, €37 billion in manufactured goods and €29 billion in energy products.

Subtitled dramas like The Killing and The Bridge have become a regular feature of British TV schedules over recent years. Yet UK cinema admissions for foreign language European films remain low. Huw D Jones explores this paradox.
Last Saturday over 1 million Britons tuned-in to watch the Italian detective series Inspector De Luca, the latest foreign language import to be shown in BBC Four’s Saturday evening drama ...

The MeCETES team held their second full project meeting at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, on March 14, 2014.
(Photo: MeCETES Team Meeting, University of Copenhagen, March 14, 2014)
The full-day meeting gave the Brussels, Copenhagen and York teams a chance to discuss progress, present initial findings, and plan our forthcoming activities, including our end-of-year workshop in September 2014.